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River Cottage Blog Camp with Foodies100

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I was lucky enough to attend the Foodies100 Blog Camp at River Cottage HQ last Wednesday with lots of fellow food bloggers from all over the UK. It was lovely to have a blogging event near to me, a mere hour and a half in the car as opposed to the usual mammoth trek up to London.

We started the day with a rather bumpy tractor ride down to the farm where we were greeted with tea and pastries. It was great to finally meet and chat to bloggers who I have 'known' for years, as well meeting many new bloggers for the first time. Julie and I had a little wonder (nosey) around before the activities began and stumbled upon the room where Hugh does a lot of his filming for the River Cottage programmes.

Recognise this?

The rest of the day went something like this........

There was a fantastic food photography workshop from Lucy - with lots of great tips and ideas for photographing and styling food. I shall never look at a tampon in the same way again!

Lucy arranging a Red Cabbage for photographing

There was an informative tour of the farm and vegetable gardens from head gardener Will. He was keen to stress the sustainability of both the farm and other River Cottage enterprises such as the Canteens, who have a 30 mile ingredient sourcing policy.

Head Gardener Will

One of my favourite parts of the day was the Bread and Butter making class with Gill. He illustrated just how easy bread making can be (even easier when you have an assistant weighing out all the ingredients and tidying away your mess afterwards!). I chucked some blackberries, apple, goats cheese and fennel into my spelt soda bread - 25 minutes in the oven and voila...a great snack for my drive home.

My soda bread cooling

We were also treated to an outstanding lunch cooked by the resident River Cottage chefs. For main course we enjoyed a wholemeal ravioli stuffed with slow cooked shin of beef, served on a vegetable ragout with fresh pesto - it was divine. All ingredients were sourced from the farm itself.

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